Tests during pregnancy

When you're planning on having a baby or have been lucky enough to get pregnant, tests and examination become part of routine life. In fact you may feel like you spend most of your time either doing tests or collecting results. For those of us without medical training or knowledge understanding why these tests are needed and how to read the results can be confusing.

You can find a useful table here that shows what tests need to be done when and why.

Through out your pregnancy you will have blood tested several times. These are done to gather information about your health and that of your baby. Here you can find information about some of the tests you will need.

Urine tests are also common. Read more here.

You may also need to have a vaginal examination to check for bacteria in the vagina. Read more here.

As always, if you have any doubts or questions talk to your Doctor.

The Pregnancy Test

I've just re-lived that magical moment of the pregnancy test. I have to say I was a little surprised to have the same butterflies and nervous 'God how long can it take' feelings that I had experienced during my last test. During those few seconds (and it is seconds. Pregnancy tests work super fast these days) from when you pee on the stick to when those all important lines show up seem to last a lifetime.

In my case, I'm happy to announce that the little windows showed two very clear and solid lines, leaving me in no doubt that my son will have a little brother or sister in the near future.

From past experience I was more prepared this time round and knew that two lines means pregnant and only one means possibly not. What a lot of women don't realise when they take their first test (I include myself in this as with my first pregnancy sat for about an hour afterwards rereading the instructions and checking to see if the lines had gone just to make sure I really was) is that a positive test can't be wrong. That is to say you can have a false negative but never a false positive.

If you get a negative result, it is often wise to re-take another test a few days later to make sure. It could be that it's too early on in the pregnancy and that your hormone levels aren't high enough yet.

If it's positive, congratulations! You're going to be a mummy.

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